To serve or to be served...

It's easy to "serve" in church. I can arrange the chairs before fellowship, I'll help others by cleaning up. I'll do all sort of work (some can be even rather menial) at church, yet I am not a servant, not really serving... rather expecting to be served.

I am going to teach Mark 8-10 this week. And an important part of this section is on being a servant.

Mark 10
[42] And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
[43] But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
[44] and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
[45] For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

I went through some of my previous blog posts to see if there is any useful stuff for teaching, and found this. (I have completely forgotten about it. =P) We basically expected to be served at church. Even the Gospel has been distorted by us in the process.

It’s structured to give people what they want, not to change what they want. It centers exclusively around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. It discards the glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep human flourishing and eternal joy. This therapeutic gospel accepts and covers for human weaknesses, seeking to ameliorate the most obvious symptoms of distress. It makes people feel better. It takes human nature as a given, because human nature is too hard to change.

In this new gospel, the great "evils" to be redressed do not call for any fundamental change of direction in the human heart... These are today’s significant felt needs that the gospel is bent to serve. Jesus and the church exist to make you feel loved, significant, validated, entertained, and charged up. This gospel ameliorates distressing symptoms. It makes you feel better. The logic of this therapeutic gospel is a jesus-for-Me who meets individual desires and assuages psychic aches.


And an example is this



It is so difficult to be a servant in its truest sense. Really not expecting MY needs to be fulfilled, not be SELF-centred and think about MYSELF! This is something we all ought to learn.